Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra was a strategy guide for the interaction of penises and vaginas in Gupta-era India (320 to 550 CE), meant to be read by sexual partners to enhance their lovemaking. That's around the same time the New Testament was made official, and people still take that book pretty seriously. What's the problem?
Well it turns out there's a big difference between adopting moral platitudes from thousands of years ago, and trying out their sex advice. Some of the "tips" from the Kama Sutra seem to be setting people up for serious injury should they be performed incorrectly, or in some cases, if they're performed at all.
"When a man supports himself against a wall, and the woman, sitting on his hands joined together and held underneath her, throws her arms round his neck, and putting her thighs alongside his waist, moves herself by her feet, which are touching the wall against which the man is leaning, it is called the 'suspended congress.'"
- Vatsyayana
Oh it's just a little standing position. Sounds easy enough, right ladies? Well, to most men, the idea of having sex standing up is a slippery, pride-greased slope towards repeating the phrase, "I'm so sorry," over your naked heap of a body and his own rapidly blue-ing balls. It's not like he's going to say no. If he wants to have sex with you, he'd swear he could bench press twice his body weight right up until he passed out from the 500 lbs of barbell he just dropped on his own chest. You think he's going to tell you he doesn't have the strength to hold you up for more than five seconds?
Also, "Suspended Congress" is just about the most unappealing name for a position in the history of sex.
Why it's Dangerous:
Anne Hooper warns in her Keep It Simple Kama Sutra Series that this position should not be attempted by men "that have even the inkling of a bad back!" (Exclamation-mark totally included.) Now there's a bit of medical history he's going to willingly volunteer when you've just asked him to turn you into a human sex swing.
The book goes even further by pointing out that should the man drop the woman, her tailbone could be fractured and her arms could get popped right out of their sockets, not to mention the ferocious dick-snapping that would likely occur (see "The Turning Position," below). All told, the Suspended Congress could lead to the most humiliating emergency room visit in both of your lives.
"When a man, during congress, turns round, and enjoys the woman without leaving her, while she embraces him round the back all the time, it is called the 'turning position,' and is learnt only by practice." - Vatsyayana
Translation:
This is basically a guy doing the Curly Shuffle while inside his girlfriend, which was considered the pinnacle of intimacy by all three stooges. Some may refer to this as "The Helicopter."
The ladies love this guy.
Why it's Dangerous:
While we're all for ruining tender moments with bafflingly asinine behavior, there are certain feats the human body was not designed to perform under any circumstance. Sure, the evolutionary process is largely trial-and-error, but we're fairly certain that at no point was the penis intended to function like a corkscrew, which is the precise idea behind the Turning Position.
Vatsyayana's advice is for the male to simply wing it and spin his entire body around the girl, failing to mention that if he moves too fast he can literally snap his dick in half.
Really it's hard to tell who exactly benefits from the turning position, because even if the guy is really into yoga and manages to pull it off without suffering a penile fracture, the girl's insides are in danger of being torn to pieces if the guy is anything less than gentle. Physical injury aside, guys are spending half the time making out with his partner's feet while she in turn stares down the barrel of his grundle, which we're pretty sure is considered sexual assault, consent be damned.
"To Increase the Size and Potential of the Penis: Take shuka hairs - the shuka is an insect that lives in trees - mix with oil and rub on the penis for ten nights... When a swelling appears sleep face downwards on a wooden bed, letting one's sex hang through a hole. "
- Vatsyayana
Translation:
If you're like us, you add a few extra inches when measuring your manhood because dicks should be graded on a curve. But the Kama Sutra teaches us that we don't have to be ashamed anymore with a sure-fire method of penis enlargement. All you have to do is collect some "shuka hairs," mix them with oil, and rub them on your yogurt cannon for 10 days. Make this part of your nighttime routine, and you'll be like Ron Jeremy in no time.
Which is apparently a good thing.
Why it's Dangerous:
If you're picturing the "shuka" as a hairy bug, you're way off. Shukas are fucking wasps and their "hairs" are their fucking stingers.
Pictured: fucking wasp, fucking stinger.
If a person gives you a piece of advice that begins with the phrase "rub wasp stingers on your dick," hitting said person in the face with a brick is not only legal but actually required in some jurisdictions. See, death is a rare but potential result of engaging in this lunacy when you consider that three to five percent of people are vulnerable to "some sort" of allergy to stings ("acute death" and "inflammation of the not-alive-anymore gland" being two such allergies). The rest of the population is subjected to the general discomfort of sticking your penis in a beehive.
Sure, given the massive swelling that would result from thousands of stings could actually make it larger, but that's sort of like gouging your eyes out so you don't have to wear glasses anymore. Sometimes embarrassment is better than mutilating your penis with insect venom.
"When the legs are contracted, and thus held by the lover before his bosom, it is called the 'pressed position.'"
- Vatsyayana
Translation:
While on the surface a rather harmless sexual position, the Pressed Position is a bit awkward because it brings feet in on the action like an uninvited roommate. Basically, both partners are facing each other while the girl presses her feet against the guy's chest, sort of like a crablegged dropkick only with more vaginal penetration.
Sent from the future to robo-blast your vagina in the past.
The man, with his hands comparatively free, is supposed to massage aforementioned feet with a lustful vigor, something which is hard for most of us to achieve while rubbing some chick's gnarled bootclaws.
This image is nothing like what you would experience.
Why it's Dangerous:
Most modern versions of the Kama Sutra suggest that you add reflexology to the mix, which is a type of alternative medicine focusing on pressure points in the feet that correspond to different areas of the body.
Reflexology for Dummies.
While this dabbling in holistic remedies might be how you tricked your new age girlfriend into sex in the first place, the danger posed is that you're essentially fooling around with something that people actually go to school for. Also, you're having sex with someone while essentially tickling their feet, which makes you about a hundred times more likely to get a spastic kick to the face that knocks your teeth down your throat.
And of course there's always the chance that reflexology isn't total bullshit and you accidentally squeeze whatever part of the girl's foot that causes her heart to shut down.
"Teeth of good quality are even and of the right size, with a shiny, reflective surface, sharp edges..."
- Vatsyayana
The Kama Sutra contains a remarkably in-depth section dedicated to the biting of various erogenous zones, and really any place on the body that can fit between your teeth (though they do helpfully remind us that biting your partner's eyes is generally frowned upon).
The same section details an optimal oral sex technique called "biting the sides," which is exactly what it sounds like.
"Pecker Chomp" was rejected by the Kama Sutra editorial staff.
Some of the other biting maneuvers that are described include "The Swollen Bite," "The Hidden Bite" and "Chewing on the Wild Boar." Really, there is no way any of these could possibly backfire.
Why it's Dangerous:
Obviously biting is already a dangerous game, so when you throw genitalia and orgasmic spasms into the mix, it becomes a frigging minefield. Sexologist Anne Hooper prefaces the biting section in her editions of the Kama Sutra that "at orgasm the jaws often go into spasm and clamp shut, and can inflict a serious wound."
So yeah, make sure to whitewash every "biting" part of the book with Holy Water should you ever buy a used copy for your Twilight-loving girlfriend.
"When she raises both of her legs, and places them on her lover's shoulders, it is called the 'yawning position.'"
- Vatsyayana
The Variant Yawning Position offers the deepest penetration possible in traditional intercourse, essentially turning your penis into one of those armor piercing bullets from Lethal Weapon 3.
"Wow, he's... he's really in there."
Why it's Dangerous:
Believe it or not, the Kama Sutra was written for men with even smaller penises than what women have to settle for today. Back then, a good size dong was about four-inches, whereas today, the average guy maxes out at about six and a half. The average vaginal depth is around five-inches, give or take, so you can do the math. Being positioned for the deepest possible penetration isn't doing men or women any favors unless he's attempting to drill her uterus for oil.
The most common injury is tearing the vaginal wall, but if the guy goes in too far he could end up knocking so hard on the girl's cervix that it ruptures. Basically, if you don't stay in constant communication with each other while attempting this position, you're basically flying blind while performing very delicate surgery with a mallet.
"If a man has shed his semen in non-human females, in a man, in a menstruating woman, in something other than a vagina, or in water, he should carry out the Painful Heating vow."
- Vatsyayana
The Painful Heating vow is what the Kama Sutra instructs men to engage in should they ever throw a shot into anything that isn't a human vagina not currently in its monthly cycle.
While the "non-human vagina" thing shouldn't be too hard for most people to avoid, the rest of the list is admittedly limiting, because it essentially means no oral sex, no anal sex, no homosexual sex, no pulling out, no condoms and no tugging on your pool cue in the shower.
"Um... we could watch Batman, I guess."
Still, the vow is meant as an honorable gesture to keep men from turning into sexual deviants, which despite the surprisingly conservative list of restrictions (coming from the Kama Sutra, which has an entire chapter about how to seduce other men's wives) isn't itself a totally unreasonable idea.
Why it's Dangerous:
That is, until you realize what exactly Painful Heating is. Basically, the man is supposed to drink a mixture of cow urine, cow shit, grass, water, milk, butter and yogurt.
The yogurt is for consistency.
After sucking that hellacious cocktail down, he's not allowed to eat anything else for an entire day, virtually guaranteeing permanent damage to his stomach before he shits it down his pant leg and likely dies from 14 different bacterial infections.
Considering this vow is the same regardless of whether you were caught nailing a water buffalo or caught masturbating into a tube sock, we're thinking it would be less extreme to just wrap a bar of soap in a bath towel and smash yourself in the nuts with it.
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We aren't finished frightening you yet. Check out 7 Sex Tips from Cosmo That Will Put You in the Hospital and 9 Awesome Places to Have Sex (And the Horrific Consequences).
And stop by our Top Picks (Updated 3.15.2010) to see Seanbaby's version of the Kama Sutra.
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Jacopo della Quercia
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